A ship had sailed into the little harbor of West Haven on Monday
morning. She carried a load of lumber from down the coast and after
showing her clearance papers and discharging her cargo with all due
formality, she hoisted sails again and moved around the curve of the
harbor into a deep inlet, where she rested at anchor in a position just
opposite Boulder Lane.
Darkness fell very early that Monday afternoon as those who were not in
their homes will remember.
Mr. Bangs will recall the inky blackness of the lowering sky, as he came
out of the telegraph office, where he had wired to his chief to send
down another man, and turned his steps toward the rooms occupied by Mme.
Alta.
Our Motor Maids have not forgotten how they sped back to town after a
swift ride in their beloved "Comet," in the late afternoon, when they
discussed the situation long and earnestly.
Three figures turned into Boulder Lane as the motor car flashed past,
but the girls were too intent on their conversation to notice them. The
first, who was a tall, stout woman, walked stoically along with the
tread of a grenadier. She carried a large suit case with one hand and an
enormous bundle with the other. Her two upper teeth protruding over her
lower lip gave her that strange animal look which Billie had disliked so
much. For it was Mme. Alta, as you have no doubt guessed, trudging up
Boulder Lane. Her daughter, Francesca, walked behind. She also carried a
suit case and a bundle. Occasionally she flashed a look of hatred back
to the lights of West Haven, which place she had never loved.
Can this be Belle Rogers who brings up the procession, staggering under
a heavy satchel and moaning and weeping as she stumbles along?
"I am glad I left word that I had gone out to spend the night," she said
to herself. "At least, they won't know it for a while, and it will be
too late then."
It was a long walk before they reached the end of Boulder Lane and found
themselves on the beach of the little cove. The lights of the ship made
a rippling, cheerful track on the water, but Belle shivered when she saw
the black hull outlined in the darkness.
Several men were waiting for them near a boat, which had been moored on
the beach, and presently the three women climbed in; their luggage was
piled at one end and they were rowed away in the darkness. Two wagons
came lumbering up the beach, and half the night, Belle, who was tossing
feverishly in her stuffy berth, trying to stifle her sobs, heard the
sailors loading a cargo, while the boats plied back and forth from the
shore to the ship.
There was no wind that night and an ominous silence seemed to brood over
the sea. At last in the stillness, Belle slept. Toward morning she was
awakened by the sound of a voice. A man in a small boat just below her
porthole was calling up to some one on deck.
"Hello, Captain, it's Ruiz. I'm coming aboard. We must sail by dawn.
They've got word about us. If that girl has turned traitor, she shall
pay for it."
Belle could not hear the captain's reply, but he must have made some
objection to sailing that morning, for the man named Ruiz answered:
"Storm or no storm, I'm master here, and I say we sail at once."
And sail they did without more argument. She could hear the sailors
running about the ship. The masts creaked and groaned. Chains rattled.
Presently the boat was in motion, and from her porthole she saw the
familiar shores glide past her.
We cannot help pitying poor Belle in her misery and distress. She
dragged herself from her berth--Fannie was still sleeping soundly--and
put on her clothes. For the first time, she became aware of a sustained
and ever-increasing sound. What she had mistaken in the beginning for
the eternal noise of the waters, she recognized now as the wind. As she
cast one long regretful look back to the shores of West Haven, which she
had never really loved until now, the hurricane burst upon them with a
roar like a thousand angry beasts. The ship went scurrying through the
harbor entrance in the teeth of the gale.
Belle hurried upstairs to the deck, pulling on her ulster as she ran.
Not a vestige of curl had the wet air left in her light gold hair; but
for the first time in her life, since she had been old enough to
remember, she had forgotten that she had any hair and she did not even
stop to push back the damp, uneven locks from her eyes.
The boat had cleared the Black Reefs and was making for the open sea,
when suddenly the demon wind played a trick on the captain of the little
schooner and changed its tack. Down went the mainmast with a great
crash. Through the shrieking of the wind, Belle could hear the curses
and cries of the sailors and the yells of the captain. Mme. Alta
appeared, looking more than ever like a walrus, in her greasy old black
dressing gown. Fannie ran up behind her, making a great outcry.
The hurricane seemed to lift the ship in its arms and carry it along.
Then, with a hideous grinding noise, the vessel stood perfectly still.
Some one screamed:
"We're on the rocks!"
And Belle knew without being told that they had tossed onto the Black
Reefs.
* * * * *
"Wake up, Billie," cried Nancy, shaking her friend's shoulder violently.
"Get up and dress. We are all waiting below."
"What's happened?" asked Billie, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes.
"A ship is wrecked on the Black Reefs."
Billie leaped from her bed and began to dress hurriedly.
"It must be a fearful sight," she exclaimed, as she pulled on her
clothes. "The poor sailors, will they be saved?"
"I haven't heard," answered Nancy, "but the whole town is rushing up the
Cliff Road."
"Tell Ben to get 'The Comet.' He can run it as well as I can now."
"He has," answered Nancy, with the privilege of friendship. "I made him
get it while I routed you out."
In another five minutes "The Comet," with its load of boys and
girls,--only Mary and Percy were missing,--was climbing Cliff Road in a
driving hurricane of wind.
A straggling line of people hurried along the path toward the
Life-Saving Station.
"Is that it?" demanded Billie breathlessly, when the car had come to a
standstill opposite the light house.
"Yes," replied Merry, looking through the glasses. "She doesn't look
much larger than a fishing smack from this distance, but she's really a
pretty big schooner and she's in a bad fix, too. She has stuck right on
the Serpent's Fang, Ben. You remember that old fisherman showed it to us
last summer when we were sailing? It's a pointed rock that sticks up
higher than the others and it looked to be a pretty fierce proposition
to me."
"The life-boat is being launched!" exclaimed Elinor.
They clutched each other in their excitement, while a boat, with six
brave life-savers in it, leapt onto the crest of a big wave, only to be
hurled back again.
"They'll have to use the gun," put in Charlie. "They'll never make it in
this sea."
"What do you mean?" shouted Billie. It was almost impossible to be heard
now above the noise of the wind.
But before any one could shout back an explanation, her attention was
claimed by a man in a long, thick ulster, buttoned to his chin, and a
vizored cap pulled well over his eyes. He had come to the front of the
motor car and, bowing to Billie politely, he stood on tiptoe and
beckoned to her to lean down.
"You'll be surprised to hear that you have friends on that ship," he
said in her ear, and she recognized Mr. Bangs.
"Friends?" she repeated, in amazement.
"Wait and see," he replied, as he moved away to join another man, who
was leaning against a tree smoking a cigar.
"Look!" cried some one, and just as Billie shifted her gaze from the
ship to the beach she saw a long black line shoot out over the water and
light on the deck of the ship. It was very confusing then, what
happened. There was a great deal of shouting on shore and scurrying of
sailors on the ship. Presently there seemed to be a double line of rope
stretching out to the wreck.
After a long pause, Billie saw, creeping along one of the lines of rope,
swaying and swinging almost to sea level, an object which appeared to be
shaped like a pair of clumsy trouser legs with the head and shoulders of
a human being above.
"It's a woman," cried Nancy, jumping up and down in her excitement, as
she looked through the glasses. "It's--it's----"
"It's Mme. Alta," exclaimed Billie, as the woman was lifted onto the
beach.
No one could explain why the music teacher should be found on a wrecked
schooner, but Mr. Bangs and Billie exchanged meaning glances as Mme.
Alta was supported into the Life-Saving Station.
The next time the buoy was drawn into shore it carried Fannie Alta, a
shivering, wretched little figure, who followed her mother silently into
the life-savers' house.
"Who can the third one be?" said Billie out loud, although she was
speaking to herself. "Can it be----"
She jumped out of the car and ran down the path to the beach, followed
by her three chums. As she passed Mr. Bangs, he caught her by the arm
and said in her ear:
"The missing link."
No one but Billie and Mr. Bangs recognized Belle Rogers in the miserable
object which now crawled out of the breeches buoy. Her face was blue and
pinched with cold. Her damp hair hung in her eyes, and she moaned and
sobbed most pitifully.
When she saw Billie, she flung her wet arms around the young girl's
neck.
"Oh, forgive me! Forgive me!" she wept.
A crowd of people gathered around them.
Billie patted her on the shoulder.
"I do forgive you," she whispered, "and if you would rather not go into
the station, we will take you home in 'The Comet.'"
"Any place but home," sobbed Belle, as Ben threw his ulster around her
shivering shoulders and Nancy wrapped a scarf about her head.
The others had now recognized the poor girl, and with a generous impulse
they tried to shield her from the gaze of the villagers.
"Will you go to Cousin Helen's, then?" asked Belle, as they half carried
her up the steep path.
"Yes," she answered, and in another ten minutes the miserable refugee
was being tenderly ministered to at Billie's home by three of the most
detested members of the Blue Bird Society.